A depiction of a Spetsnaz GRU training installation as published in Soviet Military Power, 1984
Spetsnaz GRU, formally known as Special Forces of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, (Russian: Части и подразделения специального назначения Главного управления Генерального штаба Вооружённых сил Российской Федерации) is the special forces (spetsnaz) of the GRU, the foreign military intelligence agency of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.
The concept of using special forces tactics and strategies in the Soviet Union was originally proposed by the military theorist Mikhail Svechnykov, who envisaged the development of unconventional warfare capabilities in order to overcome the disadvantages that conventional forces faced in the field. Svechnykov was executed during the Great Purge in 1938, but practical implementation of his ideas was begun by Ilya Starinov, dubbed the "grandfather of the spetsnaz".[4]
The primary function of Spetsnaz troops in wartime was infiltration/insertion behind enemy lines (either in uniform or civilian clothing), usually well before hostilities are scheduled to begin and, once in place, to commit acts of sabotage such as the destruction of vital communications logistics centers, as well as the assassination of key government leaders and military officers.[citation needed]
Spetsnaz GRU training included: weapons handling, fast rappelling, explosives training, marksmanship, counter-terrorism, airborne training, hand-to-hand combat, climbing (alpine rope techniques), diving, underwater combat, emergency medical training, and demolition.
History
Soviet era
The situation was reviewed after the war ended, and between 1947 and 1950 the whole of the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU) was reorganized.[5] The first "independent reconnaissance companies of special purpose" were formed in 1949, to work for tank and combined-arms armies, which were tasked to eliminate amongst others enemy nuclear weapons systems such as the MGR-3 Little John and MGM-1 Matador.[5]
In 1957, the first Spetsnaz battalions were formed under the GRU, five to operate beyond the 150–200 km range of the reconnaissance companies. The first brigades were formed in 1962, reportedly to reach up to 750 kilometres in the rear to destroy U.S. weapons systems such as the MGM-52 Lance, MGM-29 Sergeant, and MGM-31 Pershing.[5]
Two 'study regiments' were established in the 1960s to train specialists and NCOs, the first in 1968 at Pechora near Pskov, and the second in 1970 at Chirchik near Tashkent.[6] According to Vladimir Rezun, a GRU defector who used the pseudonym "Viktor Suvorov", there were 20 GRU Spetsnaz brigades plus 41 separate companies at the time of his defection in 1978.
Known missions
The first major foreign operation of the unit came in August 1968, when Moscow decided to crack down on the Prague Spring and move the troops of Warsaw Pact countries into Czechoslovakia. The Spetsnaz GRU was tasked with capturing the Prague Airport. On the night of 21 August, a Soviet passenger plane requested an emergency landing at Prague Airport, allegedly due to engine failure.[7][8]
After landing, the commandos, without firing a shot, seized the airport and took over air traffic control. At the same time, other Spetsnaz GRU units that had infiltrated into Prague a few days before the operation seized control of other key city points.[7][8]
An Afghanka-wearing Soviet Spetsnaz team preparing for a mission at Kabul Airport in Afghanistan in 1988
Most of Spetsnaz GRU's operations remain classified even after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is believed the special forces had participated in operations in more than nineteen countries around the world in Africa, Asia and South America. From time to time, the men also served as military instructors and set up training camps for Soviet-backed fighters in Vietnam and Angola.[8]
Russian Federation
Following the deactivation of the Soviet GRU in 1992, control of the special forces was transferred to the newly formed G.U. of Russia and were maintained to their respective assigned units as before. According to Stanislav Lunev, who defected to the U.S. in 1992, the GRU also commanded some 25,000 Spetsnaz troops as of 1997.[9]
Following the 2008 Russian military reform, a brand new Directorate of Special Operations was established in 2009 following studies of American and various Western special operations forces units and commands. The newly formed Special Operations Forces which is directly subordinated to the General Staff, bypassing the GRU.[10][11] In 2013, the Directorate became the Special Operations Forces Command with a GRU unit transferring to the command.[11]
In 2010, Spetsnaz GRU units were reassigned to the military districts of the Ground Forces and was subordinate to the operational-strategic commands until 2012, due to then Defence MinisterAnatoliy Serdyukov's military reforms.[12][11] This decision was reversed in 2013 and Spetsnaz GRU units were reassigned to their original GRU divisions.[12][11]
Known operations
Throughout the mid-1990s to the 2000s, Spetsnaz GRU were involved in both the First Chechen War and more prominently in the Second Chechen War and also the Invasion of Dagestan in August 1999. The special forces learned invaluable lessons from the first war and transformed into a better and more effective fighting force and were instrumental in Russia's and the Russian backed government's success in the second war.
Spetsnaz GRU maintains an airborne unit, the Separate Spetsnaz Airborne Reconnaissance Unit (codenamed No. 48427), which participated in the 2008 Georgian War.[13] The unit is housed at Matrosskaya Tishina 10 in Moscow.[13][14]
In late 2015, GRU special forces operators were reportedly involved in the Syrian Civil War, appearing in the government offensives of Aleppo and Homs.[16][17] GRU officials have also visited Qamishli, near the border with Turkey.[18]
Russian Spetsnaz units have been used in the Russian invasion of Ukraine beginning in early 2022, they were initially tasked with going after high-ranking Ukrainian officials, including president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in order to decapitate the Ukrainian command and control structure, with the objective being to foster chaos. Like other Russian plans during the start of the invasion, the Russian Spetsnaz failed to take out Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian leadership.[19]
The Russian military was not dissuaded by the failure, and continued to use Spetsnaz in the conflict, particularly deploying them when conventional Russian forces faced significant resistance. This caused the heavy attrition rate suffered by the Russian forces to also reach the Russian Spetsnaz, according to a Pentagon leak in April 2023, all but one of five Spetsnaz brigades that had participated in the war had suffered significant losses by late summer 2022. According to the estimate, one of the separate Spetsnaz brigades in question had only ″125 personnel active out of 900 deployed.″ The casualties were expected to have increased following the Ukrainian counteroffensive in September 2022 that liberated hundreds of square miles of territory in a few days, during this offensive, the GRU's Third Guards Spetsnaz Brigade, considered one of the most elite Russian units, was caught in the retreat and had to fight a defensive action in the town of Lyman. A report by the BBC assessed that the Spetsnaz unit lost up to 75% of its men during this action.[19][20][21]
The high amount of losses suffered in Ukraine are expected to leave a strategic capability gap, since special forces unlike conventional units cannot be ″mass-produced″, the leaked Pentagon documents estimated that it would take Russia up to ten years to reconstitute its special operations capability, and this estimate referred to outdated 2022 figures. Although there are no figures concerning Spetsnaz losses after the summer of 2022, the extremely heavy losses suffered by the entire Russian forces suggest that Spetsnaz units have continued to take significant losses in the invasion.[19][21]
Unknown Department for Unknown Affairs - formerly known as UDUA, currently no information is open to the public as the files regarding it were classified for 100 years and will be declassified on 17 September 2057. The department was established in 1957 by order of the former chairman of the KGB.
Combat swimmers of the 313th PDSS conduct land operations.A combat swimmer from the 311th PDSS in Kamchatka (2017).
The navy also fields dedicated maritime sabotage and counter-sabotage diver units which are attached to the naval infantry. These units also include combat swimmers, trained to conduct underwater combat, mining and clearance diving. The task is to protect ships and other fleet assets from enemy frogmen and special forces. The term "combat swimmers" is correct term in relation to the staff of the OSNB PDSS. Every PDSS unit has approximately 50–60 combat swimmers.[34]
There are PDSS units in all major naval bases across Russia.[34] The OMRP is composed of reconnaissance divers that fall under operational subordination to the Main Intelligence Directorate (GRU). There are four OMRPs in Russia serving each fleet: Northern Fleet, Baltic Fleet, Black Sea Fleet and Pacific Fleet, with each consisting of 120–200 personnel.[34]
Not to be confused with Russian forces in Ukraine with similar moniker, see Vostok Brigade for the separatist force fighting in Ukraine, Zapad-Akhmat and Vostok-Akhmat for the "Akhmat" formations fighting in Ukraine.
The Special Battalions Vostok and Zapad were two Spetsnaz units; Vostok headquartered at Eastern Chechnya and Zapad headquartered at Western Chechnya.
It was subordinate to the GRU and responsible for carrying out mountain warfare and special operations in Chechnya. A power struggle then broke out between rival pro-Russian Chechen warlords then Head of the Chechen Republic Kadyrov and Sulim Yamadaev which led to a series of assassinations and shootouts in the ensuing years forcing the GRU to disband the controversial battalions in November 2008.
^
Butyrskij, Leonid; Larin, Dmitrij; Shankin, Genrikh (17 April 2023). "Special-purpose (OSNAZ) radio divisions in the years of the Great Patriotic War" Радиодивизионы особого назначения (ОСНАЗ) в годы Великой Отечественной войны. Istoriya gosudarstva (in Russian). Retrieved 19 December 2023. В довоенные годы Ставка Верховного Главнокомандующего приняла решение о создании радиодивизионов особого назначения (ОСНАЗ). Они входили в состав Главного разведывательного управления (ГРУ) Генштаба Красной Армии и во время войны вели перехват открытых и шифрованных сообщений немцев и их союзников в прифронтовой полосе, занимались пеленгацией вражеских передатчиков, создавали радиопомехи, участвовали в операциях по дезинформации противника. [...] Подготовка персонала для этих подразделений началась в 1937 г. в Ленинграде. Этим занимались на инженерном радиотехническом факультете Военной электротехнической академии связи имени С. М. Буденного.
^ abCarey Schofield, The Russian Elite: Inside Spetsnaz and the Airborne Forces, Greenhill, London, 1993, p.34
^ abcCarey Schofield, The Russian Elite: Inside Spetsnaz and the Airborne Forces, Greenhill, London, 1993, p.35
^Carey Schofield, The Russian Elite: Inside Spetsnaz and the Airborne Forces, Greenhill, London, 1993, p.37
^
Lunev, Stanislav (12 September 1997). "Changes may be on the way for the Russian security services". Prism. 3 (14). The Jamestown Foundation. Archived from the original on 25 November 2006. The GRU is Russia's largest security service. It deploys six times more officers in foreign countries than the Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR), which is the successor of the First Main Directorate of the KGB. Moreover, 25,000 spetsnaz troops are directly subordinated to the GRU, whereas the KGB's various successor-organizations have been deprived of their own military formations since 1991.
^ abcdNikolsky, Alexey (2015). "Little, Green and Polite: The Creation of Russian Special Operations Forces". In Howard, Colby; Pukhov, Ruslan (eds.). Brothers Armed: Military Aspects of the Crisis in Ukraine (2nd ed.). Minneapolis: East View Press. ISBN9781879944657.
^Tsvetkova, Maria (November 5, 2015). "New photos suggest Russia's operation in Syria stretches well beyond its air campaign". Business Insider. Archived from the original on December 30, 2016. CIT also published screenshots from the Instagram page of Ilya Gorelykh, who it said had served in Russia's GRU special forces in the past [...] In late October it showed he had uploaded pictures from Aleppo, one of which showed him holding an assault rifle while wearing civilian clothes. Another image of him posing in camouflage with three other armed men was apparently taken in Homs.
^"Beyond the airstrikes: Russia's activities on the ground in Syria". November 8, 2015. Archived from the original on December 30, 2016. We believe that Russia's operation in Syria is a "hybrid war", not unlike the one seen in Ukraine. Apart from the airstrikes, Russia provides Assad forces with surface-to-surface rocket systems, combat vehicles, equipment, advisors, artillery support and spotters. More importantly, recently there have been more and more reports of Russian soldiers, vehicles and "volunteers" being spotted close to the frontlines.
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